Defense Lands Punches in Police Brutality Case

Oxnard policeman Robert Flinn is a respected officer who has been charged with brutality because a jealous colleague turned on him and a crime suspect saw his chance to turn a cut eyebrow into a big payday, a defense attorney argued Wednesday.

“It’s the wave of the ‘90s: You get arrested, you blame the police,” defense attorney William Hadden said in his opening statement to a Superior Court jury.

According to Hadden, one crime suspect who claims he was battered by Flinn boasted after being taken to the hospital for a gash over his eye: “I’m going to be on easy street. I’m going to make $250,000 out of this.”

The man, Juan Lopez, 30, a suspected burglar who was never charged, eventually filed a $500,000 claim against the city, Hadden said.

Flinn also is charged with a crime partly because a key prosecution witness--former Oxnard Officer David Hawtin--didn’t like him and has a predisposition to shade his testimony against him, Hadden argued.

Hawtin felt he should have received a prized assignment to the department’s gang unit instead of Flinn and once falsely accused Flinn of having an extramarital affair, Hadden said, adding that the two didn’t get along during their SWAT training.

Hawtin, who resigned and moved to West Virginia last year, is expected to testify next week.

Flinn, 29, is hardly the “bully with a badge” depicted by prosecutors, Hadden maintained. He never clubbed Lopez, 30, across the eye with a metal flashlight after a chase through the streets of La Colonia in January 1996. And he did not kick Victor Aguiar, 23, in the face following a pursuit a month earlier, the lawyer said.

“Officer Flinn did what the city of Oxnard pays him to do--apprehend dangerous people . . . in a manner that was lawful at all times and was proper,” Hadden maintained.

Lopez has a long history of run-ins with the law, and Aguiar is now in jail for violating conditions of his parole from state prison for stealing cars, Hadden said in an interview later.

*

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Frawley said the question before the court is not the records of the men beaten by Flinn.

“Their theme is to trash the victims,” Frawley said. “Our theme is that everybody gets the same justice, that everybody is entitled to equal protection of the laws.”

However, following Frawley’s damning opening statement last week in which he characterized Flinn as a callous bully protected by his colleagues’ code of silence, Wednesday’s developments seemed to favor the defense.

All four prosecution witnesses said they saw no officer misconduct during the Dec. 27, 1995, incident in which Aguiar claims that Flinn kicked him in the face after he had given up and was lying face down on the ground in a south Oxnard backyard.

Javier Tamayo, 18, whom police were primarily pursuing during the chase and who figured to be a key prosecution witness, either disavowed earlier statements that he had seen Flinn kick Aguiar or said he did not remember what happened during the incident.

That prompted Judge Steven Perren to inform the jury that they could consider prior statements made by witnesses if trial testimony contradicted those statements.

Perren allowed Frawley to question Tamayo--now in jail after his arrest for being under the influence of a controlled substance--about statements he made to investigators for both the defense and the prosecution.

In a prior statement, Tamayo said that Flinn had allegedly attacked Aguiar even though both suspects were lying face down on the ground.

“The policeman, he came in like all mean . . . and [he said] ‘Get your hands away from your face,’ and we did that,” Frawley quoted Tamayo as saying previously. “He kicked Victor in the face. I covered my head because I didn’t want to get kicked.”

Tamayo testified Wednesday, however, that he did not remember seeing Flinn kick his friend.

In fact, he answered “I don’t remember” to dozens of questions. And Frawley, in an effort to show intimidation, asked the witness if he recognized the police officers in the audience supporting Flinn.

“There were seven Oxnard cops there in the courtroom, so you could put 2 and 2 together,” Frawley said later.

Two roommates at the Valley Park Drive house where Aguiar and Tamayo fled police also said they saw no evidence of police misconduct. Christopher Solansky said he watched the whole scene except for one quick glance away. The only abuse was directed by the suspects toward the officers, he said.

“They were cussing at them and stuff,” Solansky said.

*

After the arrests, Solansky said, he noticed “a little bitty spot” of blood under Aguiar’s nose. “You know how you slip and fall on grass, like a grass burn.”

Officer David Villanueva also testified that he turned his head away from the scene for only a few seconds and didn’t see Flinn kick anyone.

But Frawley, attempting to buttress his claim that Flinn is being protected by other officers, asked Villanueva why he had telephoned Flinn and a defense investigator before agreeing to talk to a district attorney’s investigator recently.

Villanueva said he called the accused officer first on the advice of his superior.